He finally escaped his past...

Then she appeared on his doorstep.

Sheriff Jamison Wyatt has spent his life helping his loved ones elude his father’s ruthless gang of thugs, the Sons of the Badlands. But he’s never forgotten Liza Dean, the one who got away. Now Liza’s sister, a child, is caught in the gang’s most horrifying crime yet—and only Jamison can help her retrieve the little girl from her captors. With only each other in the isolation of the unforgiving South Dakota landscape, can they infiltrate the crime syndicate before it’s too late?

NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance and romantic suspense. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people inding themselves and inding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.

Also by Nicole Helm

Wyoming Cowboy Marine

Wyoming Cowboy Sniper

Wyoming Cowboy Ranger

Wyoming Cowboy Bodyguard

Wyoming Cowboy Justice

Wyoming Cowboy Protection

Wyoming Christmas Ransom

Stone Cold Texas Ranger

Stone Cold Undercover Agent

Stone Cold Christmas Ranger

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

South Dakota Showdown

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90502-6

SOUTH DAKOTA SHOWDOWN

© 2020 Nicole Helm

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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For South Dakota,

which was all the inspiration I needed.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Bonesteel, South Dakota, wasn’t even a dot on most maps, which was precisely why Jamison Wyatt enjoyed being its attached officer. Though he was officially a deputy with the Valiant County Sheriff’s Department, as attached officer his patrol focused on Bonesteel and its small number of residents.

One of six brothers, he wasn’t the only Wyatt who acted as an officer of the law—but he was the only man who’d signed up for the job of protecting Bonesteel.

He’d grown up in the dangerous, unforgiving world of a biker gang run by his father. The Sons of the Badlands were a cutthroat group who’d been wreaking havoc on the small communities of South Dakota—just like this one—for decades.

Luckily, Jamison had spent the first five years of his life on his grandmother’s ranch before his mother had fully given in to Ace Wyatt and moved them into the fold of the nomadic biker gang.

Through tenacity and grit, Jamison had held on to a belief in right and wrong that his grandmother had instilled in him in those early years. When his mother had given birth to son after son on the inside of the Sons, Jamison had known he would get them out—and he had, one by one—and escaped to their grandmother’s ranch situated at the very edge of Valiant County.

It was Jamison’s rough childhood in the gang and the immense responsibility he’d placed on himself to get his brothers away from it that had shaped him into a man who took everything perhaps a shade too seriously. Or so his brothers said.

Jamison had no regrets on that score. Seriousness kept people safe. He was old enough now to enjoy the relative quiet of patrolling a small town like Bonesteel. He had no desire to see lawbreaking. He’d seen enough. But he had a deep, abiding desire to make sure everything was right.

So, it was odd to be faced with a clear B and E at just a quarter past nine at night on the nearly deserted streets. Maybe if it had been the general store or gas station, he might’ve understood. But the figure was trying to break into his small office attached to city hall.

It was bold and ridiculous enough to be moderately amusing. Probably a drunk, he thought. Maybe the...woman—yes, it appeared to be a woman—was drunk and looking to sleep it off.

When he did get calls, they were often alcohol related and mostly harmless, as this appeared to be.

Since Jamison was finishing up his normal last patrol for the night, he was on foot. He walked slowly over, keeping his steps light and his body in the shadows. The streets were quiet, having long since been rolled up for the night.

Still, the woman worked on his doorknob. If she was drunk, she was awfully steady. Either way, she didn’t look to pose much of a threat.

He stepped out of the shadow. “Typically people who break and enter are better at picking a lock.”

The woman stopped what she was doing—but she hadn’t jumped or shrieked or even stumbled. She just stilled. Closer now, he could see long dark hair pulled back into a braid, and an oddly familiar beat-up leather jacket that would hardly ward off the chill of a spring night in South Dakota.

Slowly, the woman stood to her full height, back to him. He rested his hand on the butt of his gun, ready for anything, even though he didn’t feel particularly threatened by the tall, slender brunette.

The set of her shoulders reminded him of... something he couldn’t put his finger on.

Until she turned, slowly, to face him.

He supposed it would have been a shock if he hadn’t known the perpetrator, but this wasn’t a local. It was someone he hadn’t laid eyes on in fifteen years. “Liza.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding and stepped forward as if it had been days since they’d last seen each other, instead of years. “Thank God, Jamison. You don’t know how long I’ve been trying to find you.”

He took her in. Fifteen years should have done more to change her, but she looked so much the same. Tall, scrappy, with dark, expressive eyes that had always gotten her into trouble with her father. And his own...

Then there was her mouth, which was full and could make a grizzled sailor blush with the creative swearing it could utter.

Once upon a time anyway. This was fifteen years later. Maybe it wasn’t half his life, but it was pretty darn close. Liza might want to act like they were old pals, but he wasn’t young and easily fooled anymore.

“I need you to come with me,” she said, stepping forward, placing her hand on his arm as if they were more than old pals as they once had been.

He laughed, not missing how bitter it sounded, and how it made her wince. Undeterred, she scanned the dark around them, fidgety and afraid. When her brown gaze met his, it was with fear.

“Do you really think I’d be here if I weren’t desperate?” she asked in a tremulous whisper.

For a second, a terrible split second, he believed in that fear and was ready to jump in to help. Then he remembered who he was dealing with. “Desperate? Or working for my father?”

She released his arm as if it was a snake that had bitten her. She even managed to look hurt. Quite the touch.

He’d saved her once. Secreted her out of the eagle eye of her father, who was always in league with his own.

After managing to get his brothers out and to Grandma Pauline, it had taken some time to get himself out. In part because he wanted his father to know—to really know, once he was gone, that it was he who had gotten the others out.

He’d been eighteen to her sixteen. They’d been friends, though he’d known she was ready and willing to be more. It had felt wrong, like taking advantage. Still, he hadn’t been able to leave her behind. Not with her father being as bad as his own. Not with all those feelings buried deep inside.

So, it had taken longer to plan, to work out the route and figure out a time when they’d both be out of the careful watch of their fathers’ men.

He’d done it, too. Grandma hadn’t been able to take her in, not with all those wild boys she was raising. But Duke Knight, Grandma’s neighbor, had. He and his wife had only been able to have one child of their own despite wanting more, so they’d fostered girls over the years, even adopted some.

They would have adopted Liza. If she’d stayed.

But she’d run off, back to the biker gang, and to everything his father ruled with an iron fist and, sometimes Jamison was quite convinced, pure evil.

Even now he couldn’t regret it. Maybe Liza had chosen to go back, but he’d given her the chance. Her choosing to throw it away was her deal. Not his.

“I’m not working for your father,” she finally said, vibrating with a loosely controlled anger. The same kind of fury he’d once felt himself.

He’d stopped letting the world make him angry. It had been a hard lesson, but an accomplishment he took great pride in. Or so he had thought, at least before she’d shown up. Instead he could feel that old anger like a geyser getting ready to burst inside him.

But he would control it. He’d built a career and a life on maintaining steady emotions. On being detached enough to get the job done, and engaged enough to care to.

“You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t take anything a biker gang member says at face value,” he managed to utter without too much bitterness tingeing his words. “Not when so many things you said to me once upon a time were lies.” Okay, that sounded a little bitter.

She shook her head, but she didn’t deny it. “You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t. And I don’t want to. Go home, Liza. Back to the life you chose.”

“You have no idea what I chose.” She cut him off and grabbed his arm again, but this time hard. “Or why I chose it,” she added, looking up at him with an emotion he didn’t understand. “More important, it doesn’t matter. Do you remember Carlee Bright?”

Jamison didn’t like to remember anything about his life in that place. His father’s camps, or the times they’d take over an entire town and drive people out. Because inflicting pain was Ace Wyatt’s currency, and he was a very rich man.

But Jamison remembered the name. “Wasn’t she Cody’s age?” His youngest brother was nine years his junior, but it felt more like a century considering it was those nine years.

“Yes. My dad knocked her up a few years ago.”

“Sounds about right, but I don’t see why that concerns me. Or you, for that matter.”

“Carlee is dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. If you’re looking for police help—”

“Police help? Police help? God, Jamison, you never change. A woman is dead, her daughter witnessed it and—”

“How am I supposed to think this isn’t a matter for law enforcement?” he interrupted, frustration getting the better of him.

“What are the police going to do about a woman in that gang who is dead? Nothing. You and I both know it.”

He didn’t respond. He knew the case likely wouldn’t have gotten the same kind of attention as another. Certainly not as much as someone who appeared on the grid with no gang association. But it wouldn’t be ignored.

Liza would never believe that.

“Is there a body?”

“No. There’s a terrified little girl. My half sister. She told me something, Jamison, and now she’s disappeared, too. I need help, and I’m not going to get it from the inside.”

“But you think you’ll get it from me?”

She studied his face for the longest time before she finally smiled, if sadly. “Yeah, I do.”

SOMEHOW JAMISON WYATT was almost exactly how Liza remembered. Age had weathered him some, but since he’d always been good-looking, it settled well on him. Lines in the right places, a wariness that made her nerves hum like she was thirteen years old again, watching him as he kept his brothers safe.

That feeling was just the same, which was how she knew, no matter how he blustered or accused her of being associated with his father, he’d help. He’d have to help.

Jamison was the one and only reason she believed in goodness. In the midst of all the bad of their childhoods, when they’d grown up as the direct progeny of some of the worst men in that group, Jamison had still somehow found integrity and honor. By finding it, he’d given it to his brothers and her.

Without him, she never would have seen what the real world looked like outside the Sons of the Badlands. She would have never had hope or love. She never would have known homes could be real and safe, and that stealing and lying and always, always watching your back was not the only way to live.

The last fifteen years back in the Sons had tried to beat that knowledge out of her, but she’d done what Jamison had always done. She’d gone back to protect her own. She’d failed with her sister, but for four years now she’d been determined to find a way to get her half sister out. Just like Jamison had saved his brothers, Liza was going to save Gigi.

Until she did, until Gigi was safe, she’d stay in the Sons. If she didn’t ever get out, she’d always have the satisfaction that she’d worked to help a few other people leave a life that sucked all the good and decent out of them.

She had to find some hope for Gigi and keep it alive. She looked up at the man who still had a good six inches on her, no matter how tall she was for a woman. She didn’t have time for the arguments she’d practiced on her way over, not for reasoning, either. She squeezed his arm. “They’re going to kill Gigi if I can’t find her. If I can’t... She’s just an innocent bystander.”

His jaw worked, his eyes squinting as if trying to hold on to indifference—a familiar move. Years ago she’d run her palm along the hard, chiseled edge of that jaw. She’d been so in awe of him. Too much hero worship and not enough sense.

She couldn’t afford to make those mistakes when a little girl depended on her. She had to be strong on her own—to add her strength with his if she ever hoped to save Gigi. She had to believe that if she had a Wyatt brother on her side, she could do this. Rescue Gigi. It was too late for Carlee, but Gigi was still alive.

I hope.

The wave of dizziness that had been plaguing her today came back in full force. She really needed to eat, to get to a place where she could sleep and take care of herself.

“I can take you to the sheriff’s department,” Jamison said, his voice hard and infused with that cop smugness he’d just been starting to perfect when she’d had to leave the warmth of the Knights’ house. “We can take your statement and—”

“I need you, Jamison. You know the Sons and you know the law. If you’re too busy guarding all this—” she waved a hand to take in the darkened small town, where, at worst, he was taking care of petty crimes “—I’d take the help of one of your brothers. Dev or the twins. They’d know enough. But I need someone who knows Ace and the Sons—enough to be afraid, and how to beat them in spite of that fear.”

Though she didn’t ask herself why she’d come to him first, when she knew that of all the Wyatt brothers with their various law enforcement jobs, Jamison would be the least likely to forgo protocol.

Except he was the one she needed. If there was an Achilles’ heel hidden inside the hard, upstanding man in front of her, it was the desire to save people.

He was silent for far too long. When he spoke, the pain of his words sliced her in two.

“If I could beat Ace, I would have done it already,” he said quietly into the dark. A painful rasp made those words hurt.

She winced again. She’d known this would be thorny, but she’d also known Jamison was truly her only hope. Any other member of the Sons—man or woman—would be too afraid or too uninterested to help. Even a few sympathetic parties could be a liability in the end.

“When was the last time you tried?” she whispered, the hushed words too loud out here in a town that looked most especially lonely at night. Was Jamison just as lonely?

It was his turn to wince, or maybe take the blow she’d just landed.

He opened his mouth, either to answer or tell her to go, when something exploded, loud and close and painful.

For a second, Liza didn’t recognize the sound as that of a gunshot. So much so she was almost surprised when Jamison crashed into her, pushing her underneath him and on to the hardscrabble gravel. His body covered her, warm and heavy.

After a moment—or was it a few moments?—he rolled her on to her back. His hands were on her, she thought, but she couldn’t quite feel them. She could see his lips moving, but his voice was garbled.

It was the concern in his dark eyes that worried her. But she was floating away on a cloud of shock she didn’t understand. Then radiating pain took her completely under.

Chapter Two

Jamison got Liza in his car, quick as he could. Much as he wanted to chase after the gunman, ascertaining Liza’s injuries was first priority. Getting her out of here and to help was second.

Finding the Sons and hurting them would have to come later—for now. Because he had no doubt who’d shot at her.

He laid her out in the back seat of his patrol car. There wasn’t enough room, and all his equipment made it all too difficult, but he searched her body for signs of a wound.

He didn’t realize he was whispering prayers that she would be all right until he found the injury. Something about his frenzied words and the gash on her leg all coming to a head to remind him to pull himself together.

Taking her to the hospital wasn’t the best option with the shooter still out there. A paramedic would insist on a trip to the hospital. So, that was a no go, too.

But his brother was a trained paramedic along with his duties as sheriff’s deputy—out here it could be a lifeline. Jamison himself knew a few first aid basics—like bandaging the leg wound, which he did with quick efficiency—but he didn’t have the course training and licenses his brother had.

Brady would be able to figure out her loss of consciousness without insisting she be taken to the hospital. Because from what Jamison could tell, the spot on her leg was the only place she’d been hurt, and it wasn’t enough for her to pass out for this long.

Debating again, he reached for the radio, then bypassed the idea. Even though it went against his instincts, his ingrained desire to be by the book—to prove he was nothing like Ace Wyatt. He decided this was bigger than the rules.

Just this once.

He picked up his cell and dialed Brady.

“Location?” he barked when Brady answered.

Brady didn’t pause or ask why. He simply answered, “Sector A.”

Northeast. Good. They could meet in the middle and figure this out. “Meet me on 302nd Avenue in Fuller Junction.”

“That’s out of my sector, J.”

“I’m well aware of where it is. You’re off the clock in fifteen.”

There was a quiet moment as Jamison shut the doors and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Must be some emergency. Heading that way.”

“Same. You’ll beat me, but I won’t be far behind. Anyone at Grandma’s?”

“Just Dev.”

“It’ll do. Give her a call and tell her we’re coming, and to have the first aid kit ready. Yours, too.”

Even though Jamison could feel Brady’s questions piling up into the silence between them, Brady didn’t voice them.

They both hung up and drove toward the meeting point. Jamison had to pay attention to the road in the inky black. He didn’t hear a peep from Liza in the back. Just slow, steady breathing. Thank God.

That was something at least.

She’d been shot. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her story about Carlee Bright. The Sons of the Badlands weren’t exactly known for their kind treatment of women. Jamison himself had always wondered about his mother’s “drug overdose” when Cody had been a baby. But he hadn’t been much more than a child himself. Certainly not adult enough to challenge it.

Sometimes he wondered if that would have mattered.

Carlee Bright wasn’t his mother, and the supposed disappearance of Liza’s half sister could all be...made-up. Getting shot hardly proved her story. If anything, it proved her connection. She knew too much to be an innocent bystander.

Still, Jamison sped through the dark, not seeing another soul on the streets. He turned onto 302nd, slowed on the gravel road until he spotted Brady’s cruiser. Jamison pulled to a stop behind him.

Jamison got out and opened the back seat door. Without a word, Brady immediately examined Liza. If he recognized her, which surely he did, he didn’t mention it.

“She didn’t fall or hit her head?”

“Not that I saw.”

Brady nodded toward the driver’s seat. “She could have just passed out from shock. Let’s get her to the ranch. I need more space and more light.”

But they both knew a woman who’d grown up in a biker gang wasn’t exactly gun-shy. She’d seen way worse than this kind of wound.

“You sure you want to take her to Grandma’s? Hospital would be...safer,” Brady said carefully.

Too carefully. As if he thought Jamison was still hung up on a woman he hadn’t seen in fifteen years and had gotten over years ago. Years and years ago. This was about the Sons, and it was about keeping someone safe. He’d dedicated his life to keeping strangers safe. Why wouldn’t he keep Liza safe, too? It was just...his job. “I’ll meet you at the ranch.”

Brady nodded and strode back to his car.

They drove, and occasionally Liza would come to, move around a bit, ask where she was. Jamison tried to keep her talking, but she faded in and out. It worried him, even as the fact she kept waking up eased some of his fears.

Finally, he turned off onto the unmarked gravel road that would twist through the rolling hills of the South Dakota ranch and farmland. Then, behind the hills, home.

There was a light on outside the old farmhouse—there always ways. Pauline Reaves was used to visitors at all times of night. She kept her doors open, her windows homey and a variety of weapons within easy reach should any of the bad element ever show up at her door.

It was home, even if he’d spent most of his adolescence in various Sons of the Badlands camps. This house with its piecemeal layout, thanks to being over a century old and needing all sorts of additions and modern conveniences, was his heart and soul.

By the time he reached the end of the gravel road and pushed the car into Park, Grandma Pauline was at the door. Jamison opened the back door of his cruiser and Liza blinked at him.

“Come on now.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before pushing herself out of the back seat. She was on her feet a second before she swayed, so Jamison scooped her up into his arms and started marching toward the house—Brady closing the door for him and following.

Dev’s two ranch dogs pranced at their feet but had been trained not to bark at a Wyatt or a Knight. They whimpered excitedly instead, obviously hoping to be petted.

Brady obliged since Jamison had his hands full.

“I can walk,” Liza said, attempting outrage, though it was weak at best.

“No, you can’t.”

She was too light by half, and her clothes fairly hung off her—except for that too-thin leather coat he did indeed remember from fifteen plus years ago.

He strode through the front door and Grandma didn’t blink an eye as her eldest grandson carried in a bleeding, unsteady ex-girlfriend, followed by another grandson.

Both in uniform.

Brady closed the door, the dogs knowing better than to enter here, where they’d have to trot through Grandma’s kitchen. Grandma Pauline did not allow such things.

“Kitchen,” she instructed. “Best light.”

As if they didn’t already know. It might not be so commonplace these days, but once upon a time the Wyatt brothers had gotten into their share of scrapes and had been patched up in Grandma’s kitchen.

Dev was already there, with one of Grandma’s “medical” sheets laid out over the kitchen table.

He raised an eyebrow at Liza but otherwise didn’t say anything. Not all that uncommon for Dev. But even though he didn’t speak, his disapproval came off him in waves.

Jamison sat Liza down on the table. “Believe me now?” she asked archly, before wincing as she moved the leg that had been shot.

Jamison chose to follow Dev’s example and kept silent.

“Let’s have a look,” Brady offered, approaching the table. He pulled back the bandage and examined the wound under better light. Grandma set a washcloth and small basin of water next to him—the first aid kit already opened and laid out.

Brady ripped the hole in her jeans so he had a large enough space to work. He cleaned out the wound, Grandma handing Liza an over-the-counter painkiller and a glass of water when she hissed out a breath.

“Have any idea why you might have passed out?” Brady asked, his voice calm and pleasant. “Recent head wound? Any other injuries?”

Liza shook her head.

“Pregnant?”

“No,” she said flatly, and her gaze stayed resolutely on where Brady worked on her thigh.

“When was the last time you ate, girl?” Grandma demanded.

Liza ran a shaky hand through her hair as Brady rebandaged the wound. “I don’t...”

“Girl needs a meal,” Grandma said firmly, already moving for the refrigerator.

“Broth, Grandma,” Brady ordered.

At Grandma’s harrumph, Jamison knew Liza wouldn’t just be getting broth.

The woman in question looked around the kitchen from her seat atop the table and tried to smile, but it frayed. “Didn’t expect half the Wyatt crew at my beck and call.”

“Don’t get shot, then,” Dev replied sharply.

“I’m no doctor,” Brady said, interrupting the back-and-forth, though his comment made both Jamison and Dev shift because Brady certainly would have made a good physician. But an elderly woman raising six boys in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota, didn’t have the kind of resources to make that happen.

So, Brady had become a paramedic and a cop, and he was excellent at both, but the two older brothers often wondered what if...?

“My guess would be the loss of consciousness came from a combination of a lack of food and shock. There aren’t any other symptoms that point to anything more going on. Get enough food in her, keep the bandage clean, she should be fine.”

“She is sitting right here.”

“That she is,” Brady replied with a patient smile. “You’re going to want to take it easy. And you’re going to want to tell us why someone’s shooting at you.”

She leveled Jamison with a haughty look. “I guess your brother can explain it.”

Jamison held her stare. “Liza thinks her father murdered Carlee Bright, and that her half sister, who witnessed it, has been kidnapped and is in mortal danger. Like Liza herself apparently is.”

THE WAY JAMISON so neutrally delivered the details of her situation made her shiver. She instantly had a blanket draped over her shoulders, thanks to Brady.

Silence descended over the kitchen, except for the sounds of Pauline puttering at the stove.

“How do you know Carlee is dead?” Jamison asked.

“Now you’re interested?” she retorted. She felt shaky and off-kilter and her leg throbbed where the bullet had—thank God—just grazed her.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say interested. Obviously you’re mixed up with something involving the Sons,” he said, gesturing toward her torn jeans and the bandage. “I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if your father killed Carlee. I’m having a harder time imagining he’d harm his own daughter. If only because you’re still alive. He’s had ample time and reason to kill you.”

She glanced at the three Wyatt brothers standing next to each other. Each with arms crossed over broad chests. They had the physical look of their father—big men, hard men. Dark hair and eyes that ranged from brown to green. Their jaws were chiseled, their mouths all in firm disapproval.

All had aged, Dev most especially. He didn’t just look weathered, he looked...beaten. She knew any questions about his limp would be met with stony silence.

Just like she knew the Wyatt boys had souls, thanks to the woman bustling around her now. Ace had no soul, Liza knew. His sons had been born or become good men in spite of it.

“Gigi is four years old,” Liza said, trying very hard to find the balance between overwrought and detached. If she was too emotional, they would dismiss her. If she wasn’t emotional enough, they’d think she was some kind of plant sent by Ace. “She saw my father kill Carlee.”

“Why would the Sons of the Badlands be scared about what a four-year-old girl says?” Jamison returned. “Surely there are enough kids running around those camps who’ve seen as much. And they have no recourse. There’s no one to tell who would do anything about it.”

“She told me, Jamison,” Liza said, trying to eradicate the lump in her throat. “She told me. The next day she was gone. I... Someone’s been following me ever since. They know I know and now someone’s shot me. After I approached you.”

“Aren’t you one of them?” Dev returned, as hard if not harder than Jamison.

One of them. Years ago Pauline would have demanded an apology out of Dev, defended Liza to anyone that her ties to the Sons of the Badlands were severed.

But that was just another thing she’d lost when she’d gone back to them—Pauline’s trust. There was no point being sad about it. She was here for Gigi, not herself.

“Regardless, if they really thought you knew something you’d already be dead,” Jamison said, his voice flat and his eyes hard.

He was right, which scared her more than anything, but it also crystallized something about Jamison for her. If he didn’t want to help her, she wouldn’t be here. He would have taken her to the hospital. Not home.

He might put on the gruff, aloof cop act, but he’d brought her home. To his grandma’s. Because even if she’d only had four years over at the Knights’ ranch, Grandma Pauline had been hers, just like Duke and Eva Knight had been something like parents.

But she hadn’t been able to stay with them. When Jamison had convinced her to escape the Sons with him, when he’d given her this home and family, she’d thought she could do it. She’d been sure she could accept her sister was a lost cause.

The more she’d been given at the Knights’, the guiltier she’d felt that her sister was still in that awful place. The more she’d seen Jamison’s brothers thrive—because he’d saved them before he’d saved himself—the harder it had been to live with herself.

She’d had to leave the Knights and go back to the Sons, to try to save Marci. In the end, it had been a lost cause. Marci didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to see the good in the world.

But Gigi was only four. She had a chance at a real life. A safe, good life. So, Liza had given up on one sister and focused on another.

Now she had no one and nothing—here, where she’d once been loved. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use what she knew to get Jamison’s help.

“I just need to find Gigi, and I can’t do it on my own. You know I can’t ask for help in that place.”

“And you know I can’t help you in that place.”

She closed her eyes against that simple truth. She just kept hoping... No. She didn’t have time to hope. Gigi’s life was at stake.

“One of you will help me,” she said. “You know too much what it’s like to be a kid in that place. You know what it’s like to watch horrors, to lose your mother and only have an awful, scary father left. One of you has to help me. You know it.”

No one said anything for the longest time. Pauline handed her a warm mug of broth and a plate with a sandwich on it.

Liza looked at the elderly woman handing her food and wanted to break down and cry, offer apologies and beg for forgiveness.

But fifteen years was too long, and she had bigger issues at hand.

Eventually Brady turned to face Jamison.

“You’re still on duty,” he said, keeping his voice low as if she wouldn’t be able to hear it.

Jamison’s jaw tensed.

“I’ll take your car back. Take your place till shift change. If something goes down, it’ll be both our butts in a sling, but I’ll do it.”

Jamison only nodded. Brady gave her one last enigmatic look, kissed his grandmother on the cheek, then left the kitchen.

Still, Jamison didn’t say anything. No one offered to help. They maintained their silence and Liza tried to ignore panic. She had to eat, that much was for sure. Too many days trying to keep out of reach of the Sons, while also trying to find Gigi, had left her with almost no supplies and far, far too long between meals.

But it was hard to eat when your stomach was twisted in awful knots. When every move felt like one that might end Gigi’s life, or her own.

She swallowed some broth, doing everything she could not to cry.

“You boys go make up two rooms,” Pauline ordered.

Dev and Jamison looked like they wanted to argue, but Liza knew they wouldn’t. Not with Grandma Pauline.

They turned and left the kitchen, leaving Liza alone with her food and the woman she’d looked up to as a teenager.

“You eat that all up before I let you out of my sight, you hear?”

Liza nodded, her vision wavering. This time not from exhaustion or losing consciousness, she didn’t think, but because her eyes were full of tears.

“None of that now, girl. You’ve got a life to save. How are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know,” Liza whispered. “If Jamison won’t help me, I don’t know what I’ll do.” She wouldn’t have said that aloud to anyone else, but she knew Pauline would keep her shameful weakness a secret.

In her no-fuss way Pauline used a dish towel to wipe the tears off Liza’s cheeks. She picked up the sandwich herself and held it out to Liza until she accepted it and took a bite.

“Jamison will help you. Stomp around a bit and put on the manly act, but he’ll help. Won’t be able to stop himself.” Pauline studied her. “But you can’t let that stubborn pride of yours get in the way, girl. And he can’t let his.”

All Liza could think was: good luck with that.

Chapter Three

“I don’t like it.” Dev leaned more to the right than the left, because his left leg was bad. A gift from Ace when Dev had been a young cop determined to take their father down.

Each of the Wyatt boys had learned, in their own way, that you didn’t take the Sons down without getting hurt.

None of them had let their past experiences sway them completely, but each of their obsessions had been stilted by Dev’s near-death encounter ten years ago. Jamison had found it necessary to give up on revenge in the face of his brother almost dying.

Jamison sighed. “What do you like, Dev?”

He didn’t answer that question. “She can’t be here.”

“And yet, here she is.” Jamison hadn’t thought it through, bringing her here, but there was no other option. He knew what it meant for himself, for his brothers. It was getting pulled back in when they’d all silently agreed to stay out.

No matter all those old feelings and promises, this felt something like inevitable.

They’d escaped the Sons of the Badlands, but their father still existed, still ran a group full of criminals, no matter how many of his biological sons had gone into law enforcement.

“You’re not just bringing trouble home, you’re bringing it to the Knights’ doorstep, as well.”

That poked at Jamison, but he had to believe he could handle it. “She seems fine. We’ll get out of here in the morning.”

“We?”

Jamison stood from where he’d made up the bed for Liza—perfectly because he knew Grandma would still box his ears if he didn’t do the chore correctly.

“Do you remember what it was like to be four years old in that place?”

Dev was quiet for a moment, then shrugged and didn’t meet Jamison’s gaze. “I didn’t know any better.”

“You know you did. And if that little girl saw something—”

“And if that not-so-little girl is BS-ing you, then what? You wind up dead?”

“I can see through Liza’s BS.” God, he hoped he was older and wiser than he’d been at twenty-two.

Dev laughed coldly. “Since when? You thought you two were going to get married and be the example for any kid stuck in that hellhole. A fairy tale told to dirty faces so they could believe they’d escape someday. Then she ditched you. For them.”

It stung, because the truth could, but Jamison was too old to get riled up about his brother’s barbs.

“I’ve got too many what-ifs, brother. I can’t take on another. I’ll be careful, but I’ve got to help her find this little girl.”

Which was enough of an emotional truth for Dev not to say another word. They moved to the room across the hall, which had been the room Jamison and Dev had shared years and years ago. Now, Dev slept downstairs in the mudroom converted to bedroom.

Taking the stairs every day was too hard on his leg. Especially in the morning, when it was stiff from sleep.

“You’ll have to be careful. You can’t trust her. No matter what memories she stirs up.”

“I don’t trust her,” Jamison said, maybe a pinch too loudly. Because his instincts when it came to Liza were a mess, that was for sure. But he knew it. If you could identify a problem, you could address it. So, there’d be no trust. He’d follow his own instincts and beliefs and—

“Good to know.”

They both looked up to find Liza in the doorway. Jamison didn’t feel particularly guilty—it was something he would have said to her face. But something about how pale she was and the sleeve of saltines in her hand poked at him.

He stood stiffly. “Your room is across the hall.”

She glanced behind her, then smirked. “Lucky me.”

She walked over to her room, favoring the leg that hadn’t been shot.

“Watch yourself, J. She is nothing but trouble. I can guarantee it.” Then Dev did his own limping out of the room.

Jamison let himself breathe in and then out a few calming times. Liza was no doubt trouble, always had been, but that didn’t mean he could ignore a four-year-old stuck in a bad situation.

She was hardly the only little girl in a bad situation associated with the Sons, or the world at large, for that matter. As a cop Jamison had come to accept that he couldn’t help everyone, but that he should certainly try to help whoever he could.

He opened the dresser drawers in his old room until he found what he wanted. He walked across the hall, knocked perfunctorily before opening the door.

She swore at him, then stood there glaring.

She’d taken off the ripped jeans, which had messed with the bandage. Now she stood only in a long-sleeved T-shirt and her underwear. Her legs were as long and mesmerizing as he remembered, and he stared a beat too long.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to recover. He gestured at the bandage. “Need help?”

“Yeah. Why don’t you put your hands on me while I’m half-naked?”

He raised his gaze to meet hers. “Worried you can’t control yourself around me, darling?”

She scoffed, but the corner of her mouth kicked up with some humor. “Fine. Help.”

He placed the map on the bed and then crouched down by her leg, refitting the bandage and smoothing the tape over. It required touching warm skin and a copious amount of control not to remember all the times he’d touched her for completely romantic reasons.

They’d been different people way back then—smooth skin or not.

He stood and didn’t dare look at her face. “Let’s talk logistics.”

“God, that’s so hot,” she said dryly.

He sent her a look, saw her pulling her jeans back on and shook his head. “Wait.”

She frowned, good leg in one leg of the jeans. “Huh?”

He strode out of the room again, went rummaging through his old drawers, found an old pair of gym shorts and returned to her room. “Here.” He tossed them at her.

She caught them and studied them, then shrugged and dropped the jeans. She slipped the shorts on, tying the drawstring tight. They landed below her knees, although she was a tall woman herself. But it was hardly a good idea to be wearing shorts on a cold early-spring night in a rickety old farmhouse.

“Now, it’s not near warm enough up here for that, so why don’t you crawl under the covers?”

“You’re really going to have to stop coming on to me, Jamison.”

“Ha ha. Get in bed.”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him as she slid under the covers, trying—and failing—to cover up the wince of pain as she presumably laid her weight a little too hard on her wound.

He picked up the map he’d brought in and smoothed it out over her lap. “Where?”

Her hesitation spoke volumes and reminded him of all the ways she’d once fooled him.

And never would again.

“You and your cop buddies can’t go in there guns blazing. Gigi won’t be the only one hurt.”

“Do you see a slew of my ‘cop buddies’ crowding in here, Liza? Or is it just you and me?”

“It’s complicated. Surely you understand that.”

“Either you can tell me where the main camp is and I see what I can do to help Gigi, or you sleep off your gunshot wound and fend for yourself tomorrow in the morning.”

She looked up at him, her dark eyes too direct and assessing. As if she still knew him, understood him. “You’d love to believe you’re that tough, wouldn’t you?”

“Try me.”

LIZA LOOKED AT the paper map—of all things—of South Dakota spread out on her lap. She knew exactly what he wanted to know, and that she had all the information he desired. Except she didn’t hesitate for the reasons he thought.

Jamison saw dealings with the Sons as black-and-white. He believed you were with them or against them—he’d had too many years winning against them as an officer of the law. He was a man after all, and it was so easy to see the world as with you or against you when you held the power.

But Liza had lost in that world, and losers had a much more complicated view of things.

She was worried about Gigi, about how to get to her. She was worried about anyone who risked their life to help her—because lives were on the line.

But specifically she worried about involving Jamison.

She knew Ace Wyatt would someday decide to exact revenge against his sons. He had plans, but he was a patient man. He’d go after them when they least expected it, when Ace most needed it. She knew Ace was always looking for that perfect moment to make it poetic justice or divine revenge or whatever went on in his head.

She didn’t want to send Jamison riding into Sons territory knowing it could be the shot that started a war.

You know he’s your only chance or you wouldn’t have come here. Besides, you think Ace Wyatt doesn’t know exactly where you are?

She looked up at Jamison—now in immediate danger because of her. She’d been shot. Of course Ace, or even her own father, had sent someone to do that. If either had pulled the trigger, she knew damn well she’d be dead.

The shot was meant to be a warning. Furthermore, whoever had shot her would have followed her. Jamison was involved now, whether he chose to be or not.

Guilt swamped her. She looked down at the map, surprised to find tears clouding her vision. She didn’t think she had tears left anymore. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“There are a lot of things you could be sorry for, Liza. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”

She would never be sorry for leaving the Knights to go back to the Sons all those years ago, but she didn’t think telling him that in the moment would do any good for either of them. “I’m sorry for this, because they’ll know you’re involved, even if you decide not to be. Whatever happens, this will be the start of something. I didn’t think that through.”

He held her gaze for a long time. “Every beginning has an end, Liza.” He pointed at the map. “Now. Where?”

Knowing it couldn’t possibly end well, but that it was Gigi’s only chance to survive, Liza pointed. “Here. They’ve taken over Flynn.”

Jamison’s expression hardened. “Flynn.”

“You know it?”

“That’s where dear old Dad was born, where his parents abandoned him. Where he took us out and taught us to be men. I don’t think that’s a coincidence he’s settled down there right now, Liza. Whatever war you’re worried about starting—Ace already beat you to it.”

Chapter Four

Jamison didn’t sleep much. Brady had finished off his shift without anything cropping up, and Jamison had done the unthinkable and called in to his superior officer, requesting to use all of his vacation time.

He’d built up quite a lot. There’d been questions, hemming and hawing, but in the end, Sheriff Sneef couldn’t deny Jamison deserved a “vacation.”

Yeah, some vacation.

Grandma came into the kitchen through the back porch. He heard the squeak of the door, the whimper of the dogs left outside, then the stomp of her boots against the rug before she bustled into the kitchen, a basket with a few eggs cradled inside on her arm.

“You’re up, then.”

There was just a hint of disapproval in her tone, but it was hard to wake up early enough to suit Grandma.

No doubt Dev was already out with the cows, grumbling over the fact his ranch hand was Sarah Pleasant, one of the Knights’ foster girls. Not a girl anymore, and splitting her time helping her guardian on his ranch and wounded Dev on his.

Because life at the ranch went on no matter what was going on with Ace and the Sons. Whether you’d lost your wife to cancer like Duke had, or you’d lost full function of your body after a run-in with Ace like Dev had.

“We’ll be out of your hair soon. I’d like Liza to get a good breakfast in first.”

Grandma simply made a noise of assent as she pulled out a pan. She went about breakfast preparations as if everything was fine.

Jamison wished he believed that could be true. Bringing Liza here last night had brought Grandma into the thick of things. It wasn’t the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last, but it was hard not to feel guilty about it.

She’d never asked for this. It was hardly her fault her only child had been taken in by the likes of Ace Wyatt. Certainly not her lot in life to take care of their six rowdy, traumatized boys.

But she’d done it. Now she was creeping up on eighty, and he could see the weight of the Wyatt world on her shoulders. It was a burden she’d taken on, and she’d done it without a complaint.

“You’ll need to be on watch,” he said as blandly as he could manage. Because any true expression of worry would be offensive to her, any command would make her bristle and sure to do the opposite.

“I’m always on watch.” She turned from the stove and studied him in that way of hers. “Don’t doubt yourself. Not on this.”

It was no surprise Grandma Pauline could see right through him, but that didn’t ease his concern. “It’s complicated.”

“The right thing usually is, Jamison,” she said, turning back to her meal preparation.

Jamison had been attempting to do the right thing his whole life. Getting there—like Grandma said—was rarely simple.

Liza walked into the kitchen. She looked like she’d had a rough night. Grandma immediately handed her a glass of water and some over-the-counter pills for pain.

“Thanks, Pauline.”

“Sit. Breakfast will be just a bit.”

Liza slid into the chair farthest from him. Which would have been great if they weren’t about to embark on a dangerous mission together. Truth be told, he’d rather leave her behind, especially with her injuries.

But she knew what they were looking for better than he did.

Dev’s warning sat in his gut. He couldn’t ignore the possibility Liza had been sent. That this was an elaborate scheme to get him on his father’s territory.

Jamison might have washed his hands of the Sons years ago, but he’d always known his father wasn’t the kind of man to let that stand. Maybe Jamison had gotten a little complacent when his father hadn’t instigated any attacks since Dev’s run-in ten years ago. Maybe Jamison had begun to hope escape was really enough.

But that didn’t mean he was surprised at being drawn back in.

Whatever parts of the truth Liza was telling him, Jamison did believe a little girl was in danger. Which meant he needed Liza if he was going to be able to find Gigi. Liza knew a lot more than she was telling him, he was sure, and she had far more insider knowledge of the Sons’ recent movements than he did.

They’d have to work together.

“I’m surprised there aren’t reinforcements,” Liza offered into the quiet kitchen.

“Brady, Tucker and Gage all have jobs, Liza. Ones they can’t leave at a whim.”

“So, I did come to the right brother.”

“I had vacation time to take, so I took it. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“What about Cody? You didn’t include him in your laundry list of important men with important things to do.”

Jamison’s entire adult life was dealing with people who questioned and sometimes even challenged his authority—starting with being saddled with five brothers who had smart mouths and no compunction trying to get under his skin. He should be quite adept at handling Liza’s little barbs.

Or so he told himself.

“Cody isn’t any of your concern.”

“Don’t tell me one of the Wyatt brothers isn’t quite so chummy with the rest. What? The baby Wyatt run away?”

“That’ll be enough,” Grandma said in that quiet way of hers that was scarier than when she was threatening a man with a wooden spoon to the head.

She slid a plate in front of Liza, then Jamison. Both were loaded with bacon and eggs and biscuits. Age had slowed her down some, but it hadn’t stopped her from doing a darn thing.

“Jamison, I’ve packed up quite a few provisions. Obviously, you’ll want to take your camping supplies just in case. Still, I’ll put together some linens.”

“I can—”

It only took a very carefully raised eyebrow for Jamison to swallow the rest of his words. Heaven forbid he try to patronize his grandmother with assistance.

She didn’t want to be treated like an “old lady.” It was hard to learn the balance between truly helping her and jabbing at her pride.

“I see things haven’t changed around here,” Liza said once Grandma had left the kitchen.

Jamison wished that were true. But things had changed. Dev’s injuries. Cody’s evasiveness about his job that kept him far away from the ranch. The middle lot hadn’t changed much and all worked for Valiant County. Gage enjoyed pretending he was a happy-go-lucky sheriff’s deputy, his twin, Brady, taking on a more serious outlook with the same job, while Tucker’s detachment to the detective bureau kept him busy and satisfied—supposedly.

But Jamison wondered if they’d just gotten better at hiding their scars as adults.

A concern and a worry for another day. He ate the breakfast Grandma had set in front of him. Liza did as well, without any more commentary. Thank God.

She scraped her plate clean, which comforted Jamison some. He took their plates to the sink once they were both done and didn’t miss the way she watched him. She was here because she thought he was the only one who could help her—not because she necessarily wanted his help.

Wasn’t that always the way with her?

As long as he remembered that, as long as he didn’t get sucked into old memories, this would be fine.

He took Liza outside to help pack up the truck. Grandma’s truck was a nondescript Ford that would suit him well. Brady and Gage would get Jamison’s truck out to the ranch for Grandma to use later today.

“This is a lot,” Liza said, sounding something between wary and exhausted as he crammed another cooler into the bed along with all his camping supplies. She crouched nearby, petting the dogs.

“We don’t know what we’ll need or for how long, and I don’t want you passing out on me again.”

She didn’t smirk or even make a snotty comeback like he’d hoped—no, not hoped—expected. There could be nothing to do with hope when it came to Liza.

She stood and hugged herself instead, looking out at the endless rolling landscape of the ranch. “They’re going to know we’re coming.”

There was a rawness to that statement he simply couldn’t let affect him. “I know it’s been a while, but surely you know me better than to think I don’t understand that.”

“You can’t underestimate them.”

Jamison looked over at Dev limping from the barn, and the small figure that was Sarah. Dev started walking toward them, and Sarah toward the house. The dogs raced to Dev. It made a nice picture, all in all, but his brother’s limp stuck in his craw.

No, he’d never underestimate his father or the Sons again.

LIZA DIDN’T MISS the look Jamison gave his brother. She was definitely missing pieces of that story. Part of her wanted to ask, wanted to dig. The Wyatt brothers and their grandmother still felt like family even if she’d cut them off fifteen years ago.

Worse, so much worse than that feeling was the fact beyond Dev were rolling fields. Behind those hills was the Knight place.

Was Duke still running his cattle, laughing uproariously at himself and his over-the-top stories? Were her foster sisters from those beautiful few years she’d spent under their roof still there? Or had they built beautiful lives of their own?

Did they all hate her?

“I’d say you could stop by, but I don’t want to drag Duke and the girls into this.”

Liza swallowed, looking away from Sarah’s far-off form and the only true home she’d ever had. “No, I don’t, either.” She didn’t want to ask which girls. Leaving meant she’d learned that no information was better than some and knowing she couldn’t be part of it.

“Sarah and Rachel still live on the ranch. Cecilia lives on the reservation—she’s tribal police now. Felicity’s a park ranger over at Badlands.”

She didn’t want to ask, but he’d started it. “What about Nina?”

Jamison shrugged. “She left.”

“Left... How?”

“Do you really want to know, Liza? Because, by my count, the past fifteen years were yours for the knowing.”

It hurt because it was true, and because it was true she didn’t know what to say. But Dev approached, looking stormy and grumpy—which was different from the eager, determined teenager she remembered.

Maybe some things had changed.

“Heading out?”

“Looks like. Grandma was getting together a few more things. I’ll be in touch.”

Dev nodded, then turned his attention to her. Disapproval was etched into every line on his face, and none of it was softened by the beard that hid most of his mouth. “Watch your back, brother,” he said, though he said the words while looking at her.

She didn’t bother to plead her case to Dev, or to Jamison, for that matter. She’d broken their trust, knowing full well how slow trust was gained when it came to the Wyatts. Whatever they wanted to lay at her feet was fine, as long as they found Gigi.

Pauline came out with another load of who knew what. Liza felt like they were packing for a covered wagon trip across the prairie. She’d gotten by on next to nothing the past few days. Of course she’d ended up shot and unconscious.

Jamison said his goodbyes, giving strict instructions to be contacted if anything fishy happened at the ranch. Then they were loaded up in Pauline’s truck and driving away from the ranch.

Liza watched the gorgeous scenery go by. Spring was trying to get ahold of the land. There were touches of green peeking through just about every rolling brown hill. The scarce few bare trees they drove by were softening with buds.

Jamison drove west, which was right where the Sons were camped for the time being. It put Liza on considerable edge. Maybe he was just going to deliver her back to the Sons and be done with her.

But no. Jamison wouldn’t willingly go into Sons territory. Certainly not for her. “Where exactly are we going?” she asked when she couldn’t stand another minute of silence.

“Not directly to Flynn if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She wasn’t sure what she was worried about. Everything, maybe. She’d come to Jamison because he was the only one who could help, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t doubt his methods. He was a cop now. He wouldn’t be breaking any laws to bring her sister to safety.

It was about two hours between Flynn and Pauline’s ranch, and they’d already been going for over an hour. Jamison said they weren’t going directly to Flynn, but it sure felt like they were.

Liza pressed her forehead against the passenger window. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw a flash and she looked in the rearview mirror. Her entire body went cold. “Right about now I’m worried about the tail we’ve got,” she said, her throat tight with fear.

Jamison grinned, just like he’d done when they were younger. Irritatingly, her stomach did the same stupid swoop it had always done back then, too.

“I’m not,” he offered, then without any warning punched the gas and sped off the road.

Chapter Five

Jamison wouldn’t admit to anyone there was an excitement in all this that he’d missed. A thrill he’d thought he’d left behind when he’d become a cop.

But taking the truck over the edge of the road, slamming down the gas pedal a little too hard as they sped over the hills, turning too tight around rock formations, it filled him with a dark satisfaction he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in a long time.

He slid a quick glance at Liza. Her expression vacillated between worry as she looked behind them, and that wicked smile he remembered. She’d always been fueled by danger—even more than him.

But this wasn’t the old days, a fact he had a bad feeling he was going to have to remind himself of over and over.

There wasn’t much cover, even as they got closer to the landscape that dipped and cratered with soaring stone ridges. The closer they got, the more impossible it would become to drive quickly or evade their pursuer.

“All right. Hold on.”

He did a tight 180. Liza screeched—out of fear or delight it was hard to tell—but the truck held and Jamison sped directly toward their tail. He passed them, a pinch too close, their door mirrors crashing into each other and splintering off.

Jamison swore. “Grandma’s going to kill me for that,” he muttered, speeding back to the highway, gaining enough distance from their tail to get back on the road and make it to the turnoff he wanted without being seen.

Liza kept watching out the back window as Jamison maneuvered down a gravel side road that would take him where he wanted to go.

“It’s not going to be that easy.”

“No. I’d wager that’s only the beginning. But the one thing we’ve got going for us is they’re not going to kill us.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because if anyone in that group is going to kill us, it’s going to be our fathers. That’s one thing they’re not going to send their goons to do. Or we’d have been dead a long time ago.”

“Isn’t that even the tiniest bit depressing to you?”

“If a man like my father wants to kill me, I figure I’ve made a pretty good life for myself.”

“Policing some Podunk town in the middle of nowhere.”

The insult didn’t bother him. He wouldn’t let it. He hadn’t built his adult life to impress his ex-girlfriend who’d betrayed him once upon a time. So, he replied to her bland statement lightly, confidently, “Keeping the people of a small, tight-knit community safe from the likes of my father. It works for me.”

“Some of us choose to protect the people inside from the likes of your father.”

“Is that what you thought you were doing when you left, Liza? Protecting the people who willingly follow our fathers around—and willingly hurt and kill people in their paths?”

“Children don’t have a choice, Jamison. You should know that better than anyone else.”

He didn’t have a response for that. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe she’d gone back to the Sons all those years ago to protect children when she’d still practically been a child. Or that she wouldn’t have tried to explain that to him instead of disappearing in the middle of the night, making them all fear the worst.

He opened his mouth to say that, to ask her if she had any idea what she’d put all of them through those first few days. How worried sick the Knights and their girls had been, how he and his brothers had mounted a search-and-attack plan.

Until Grandma had stated the obvious. Clearly, Liza had left of her own accord.

Ancient history. Let it go.

He took the next turn a little too quickly considering he was almost certain they’d lost the tail. He followed this dirt road, backtracking toward Bonesteel, then taking a few paved roads back to the highway farther west.

“They’ll still know where we’re going,” Liza said, not bothering to hide her disgust.

“But they won’t know how. Or when. Do you think Gigi is in Flynn?”

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t find her, but that doesn’t mean anything. Dad was around the whole time, so she’s either in Flynn, or someone’s taken her away and is waiting for Dad.”

“The second is more likely if you couldn’t find her.” Which made things more difficult, but not impossible.

She closed her eyes as if that truth hurt. “Yeah.”

“So, where are the Sons holding ancillary camps right now?”

“I don’t know, Jamison. I was hardly top of the food chain.”

“You couldn’t have been that low if you were there.”

She shook her head. “You never, ever once understood that it’s different for women in there. When you’re property to be traded around, no one needs revenge on you. Being there is revenge enough.”

Maybe there was a truth to that, but it didn’t negate his truth, either. “The Sons don’t let anything live that doesn’t have use to them.”

“And yet here you are, alive and well. What use do you serve, Jamison?”

It was pointless to try to get through to her. And she was wrong. He’d understood he had a different place in the Sons than she did when they were still stuck there. Why did she think he’d risked his life to get her out?

But with or without her cooperation he could make some educated guesses. Luckily, he knew the area around Flynn well. When he’d been growing up, the Sons had had two main camps—one directly in the Badlands, though outside the park, and another closer to Bonesteel. Flynn had been the middle ground, and Dad’s special place. He’d called it sentimental, but Jamison had known better than that.

Flynn was where Ace Wyatt had taken his sons when he wanted to hurt them. Warp them and mold them into the kind of man Ace was.

The fact Ace had never been able to do it was probably his biggest and only regret. Which was why Jamison had known, no matter how he’d hoped otherwise, that he walked through this life with a target on his chest.

Dad wouldn’t die until he exacted revenge on his sons for refusing to be broken. Ace had built his gang and his power on his control, though. He didn’t need death and revenge immediately. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted it to mean something.

Letting his children build lives, only to take them away, was exactly the kind of thing Ace got off on.

Jamison glanced at Liza. There was true fear there—for Gigi. But this could still be a trap. For all he knew, his father or hers could have demanded his head for Gigi’s. He wouldn’t put it past any of them, and he could hardly blame Liza for using him to save her sister.

“You know, if they sent you here under the guise of some kind of trade, it’s not going to end well.”

She laughed. Bitterly. “I know you don’t know me at all, and, sure, I’d love to trade your life for my sister’s, but they didn’t ask. Even if they had, I’d know better than to make a deal with the devil. The devil always wins, and I will not let Gigi lose.”

She was vehement and angry, and he wished that didn’t make him believe her. He wished it could remind him to harden himself against her. But when it came to Liza, wishes had never come true.

“If we save her—get her out and safe, truly safe, you won’t be able to go back. Not ever.”

She turned her head to meet his gaze. Her dark eyes were wet but filled with fierce determination. “I know.”

There was more he could say, but he figured they should get where they were going first. And he should get the emotions complicating this rescue mission under control.

LIZA DIDN’T TRY to keep track of the circuitous path Jamison was driving. They were getting closer to Flynn, and she was getting closer to falling apart altogether.

She should have asked one of his brothers. Or kept on trying to find Gigi herself. She never should have involved Jamison, thinking old hurts had been eradicated.

Because they weren’t gone, only buried, and every disdainful look or overly obvious statement from him dug deeper to the heart of all that old pain.

But she’d suffer through it for Gigi. She hadn’t been able to save Marci from the Sons. Liza didn’t know how to live having failed both her sisters. One failure was hard enough.

If she could save Gigi, get her away from the Sons, well, yeah, she wouldn’t be able to go back. But going back to the Sons had only ever been to save her sisters.

Just like, once upon a time, Jamison had saved his brothers.

She could have told him. If she explained to him why she left, he would have insisted she should have told him, and he would have taken care of the problem.

Maybe he would have, but she’d known how hard it had been. She’d watched him put all five of his brothers before him. She’d watched him put her before him. To have asked him to do that again for something that was her responsibility had felt wrong.

She’d wanted to live up to the unreachable example he’d set. Instead, no matter how Liza had fought for her, Marci had thrown her life into the Sons. Liza hadn’t given up on Marci, which was why she’d stayed so long, until Marci had only laughed when her boyfriend had threatened to murder Liza in her sleep if she came near them again.

By then, Carlee had been pregnant, and Liza had spent the last four years trying to talk some sense into the girl. Get them all out—she knew what it was like to be separated from your mother and she didn’t want to do it to Gigi. Carlee had wavered back and forth, giving in just enough for Liza to keep hoping she could save them all.

Now Carlee was dead, Gigi was missing and the truth was Liza wasn’t good enough for this. She needed the only man she knew who was.

“We’ll camp here.”

She sat up a little straighter, peering out the window. They’d gotten closer to the Badlands. The rock formations that made the area famous surrounded them. Craggy valleys and the eruption of rock stretched for miles, making it difficult to hide from all directions, but Liza had no doubt Jamison knew what he was doing.

“Camp?” It was still early enough spring that nights would be frigid.

“Did you think we were heading for a resort?”

She snorted. “Yeah. That’s what I was expecting.”

“Camper shell is set up on the bed. We’ll be fine.”

“Tight quarters.”

“Safer that way. We’ll eat a little something now. Then figure out our best bet for hideaways around Flynn.”

“It’s been three days since I’ve seen her. They could have taken her anywhere.”

“Could have, but we know how they operate. Somewhere close.”

“Jamison...” She didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to shift the focus away from finding Gigi, but if the whispers she heard were true, Gigi could be far, far away. “There’s something more.”

“Isn’t there always,” he muttered, pushing out of the truck.

Liza didn’t know if his disgust was aimed at her or at the Sons in general, but she got out of the truck herself and crossed over to his side of the vehicle, where he was pulling out the food provisions.

“There’ve been rumors. Whispers. Nothing concrete and I haven’t seen evidence, but if it’s true...” Liza could hardly speak it. She so desperately didn’t want it to be true.

Jamison put the cooler on the ground and stared expectantly at her, folding his arms over his chest when she still didn’t talk. He gave her what she was sure was a very effective cop look. But she was too heartsick over Gigi to be intimidated by it.

“Trafficking,” she managed to say through a too-tight throat.

“Drugs are hardly new to the Sons’ operations.”

“Human, Jamison. Human trafficking. Sex trafficking.” She desperately tried to keep the tremor out of her voice and failed. “Gigi’s such an innocent.”

The impenetrable cop mask gave way to full-on horror. “She’s four, you said.”

“I don’t know much about it, but I assume it doesn’t matter how old you are. Long as a person is female and vulnerable. Hell, maybe only vulnerable. You’re a cop. Surely you’ve seen the worst humans can do to children.”

He turned away from her at that, focusing on the food.

“The point of me telling you that is if she got pulled into something...different, they’re not going to follow the old rules.”

He put together a sandwich and handed it to her. It took her a minute to get ahold of herself enough to take it. Despite it being her favorite—ham and Swiss, heavy on the cheese, light on the meat—she didn’t have an appetite for it.

If nothing else, she could find some tiny satisfaction over the fact that he remembered what she liked to eat. That he didn’t only remember the ways she’d betrayed him.

“The Sons do things a certain way,” he said, making his own sandwich. “Even if it’s new, the ways will be old. They evolve, but they don’t change. We just have to figure out where they’d be able to hide human cargo instead of drugs. I think we can.”

“You’re awfully confident.”

“You came to me for a reason, Liza. I have to believe it’s because you thought I could do this.”

Since she didn’t trust her voice, she nodded.

“Then I’ll do it.”

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